Posted: Apr 05, 2011 9:27 pm
IIzO wrote:2. It is proposed that a being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.
Seriously , how is this not begging the question ?"maximal excellence in every possible world" is rejecting every possible worlds where maximal greatness is less than maximal excellence without justification .
The proposition is not acceptable to me ,there are no direct equivalence between maximal greatness and maximal excellence.
Here's something I'm sympathetic to at least to some degree. It seems to me that a maximal greatest being should (at most) just be required to be maximally excellent in every world in which it exists. Why, every world? What's so repugnant about not being maximally excellent in a world wherein you, a maximally great being, do not exist?
If we grant this, then it only follows that, possibly, a maximally excellent being exists.
BTW, Paul, I forgot to mention that I don't think we are doing theology here. Probably the most accepted conceptual difference between theology and philosophy is that only the former uses (and has to use at least once) premises which are from revelation. Plantinga, a philosopher, does not such thing.